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As the mercury peaks, shops across Sydney are running out of fans

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Shops across Sydney are running out of fans, sending some families - bracing for a heatwave - into a panic.

Supermarkets, department stores and appliance retailers say a single shipment of fans is being wiped out at some locations in two to three days. One retailer joked that customers will have to wait until "next summer".

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Fairfax Media has spoken with staff at nearly 20 stores - including Big W, Kmart and Bing Lee - and found the majority have no stock.

Coles stores at Broadway, Edgecliff and Hornsby have run out of the Celsius 30cm Box Fan, which retails at $27.50.

Shop assistants at each store say they may receive more fans in a delivery overnight, however they could not say for certain.

James, a sales manager at The Good Guys in Alexandria, says a shipment of 40 to 50 fans was disappearing in two to three days. The store still has some stock.

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"It's usually hard to move wall mounted fans because people don't want to damage their walls, but they've been cleaned out. They retail between $50 to $100," he says.

He says people were seeking to buy portable air conditioning units as they were more effective.

With Friday's 38-degree weather looming, Camperdown resident Vanessa Hingston decided two fans were not enough to keep her old terrace cool.

On Thursday she headed to her closest Harvey Norman to purchase a portable air conditioner for $1295 ahead of the heatwave.

"At first I was concerned about the energy [usage] ... but it's not something we will be running all the time. We will still use fans when its not so hot," she says.

"But on days when its 40 degrees and you have a two-year-old and two dogs ... sometimes you have to do these things."

In December a national survey estimated the collective cost of Australia's airconditioning habits would hit $2.5 billion this summer alone.  

At Kmart in Broadway, electric fans sold out around three weeks ago, and the store is not likely to receive any more stock.

A shop assistant at Kmart Bondi Junction says there would be more fans "next summer." The same was true at the Parramatta Kmart store.

Harvey Norman stores in Broadway and Alexandria are running low on stock.

Big W stores in Macquarie and Top Ryde say their stock of affordable, pedestal and desk fans have been depleted.

"We haven't had fans for two weeks. I have no idea when we're getting more," one of the store assistants says.

Bing Lee in Burwood says at present it only has 10 fans left in the whole store.

"Fifty were shipped this morning. The most popular is the $69 remote Excelair fan," its manager says.

Fairfax Media also made enquiries at Target Bondi Junction, Target Hornsby and Target Parramatta, all of which had sold out of fans, having received their last shipment a few weeks ago.

"We don't have any at the moment and we don't know if we will get more," a Target Parramatta shop assistant says.

"It is quite normal for this time of year, because this is normally our changeover time to winter stock."

Arup Chatterjee, owner of Fans City in Waterloo, is enjoying a big lift in sale in ceiling fans, which his store specialises in.

"We usually average 50 sales a week, but at the moment we're selling 80 to 100," he says.

As retail outlets run out of stock, Sydneysiders have also headed to community 'buy swap sell' pages on Facebook in search of fans.
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